November 28, 2024
Japan Fair Trade Commission
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter referred to as the “JFTC”) today issued a warning to ITOKI CORPORATION (hereinafter referred to as the “Itoki”). In this case, Itoki is likely to be in violation of the provision of Article 19 (falling under unjust requests for the provision of economic benefits prescribed in paragraph (1), item (vi) of Specific Unfair Trade Practices when Specified Shippers Assign the Transport or Custody of Articles (Public Notice of the Japan Fair Trade Commission No.1 of 2004)) of the Antimonopoly Act (hereinafter referred to as the “Act”).
Summary of Warning
(1) Itoki is suspected of requiring logistics operators contracted to perform the transportation, delivery, assembly, installation, and removal of office furniture (hereinafter referred to as “the Transportation Services”) to undertake the following without compensation:
a. Work outside the delivery site by limiting the scope of overtime charges to the time spent on tasks performed at the delivery site.
b. Specific ancillary tasks (Note 1) related to the Transportation Services.
(2) The conducts of Itoki mentioned in (1) are likely to fall under unjust requests for the provision of economic benefits prescribed in paragraph (1), item (vi) of Specific Unfair Trade Practices when Specified Shippers Assign the Transport or Custody of Articles (Public Notice of the Japan Fair Trade Commission No.1 of 2004) and likely to be in violation of the provision of Article 19 of the Act. Therefore, the JFTC issued a warning to Itoki to cease the conducts described in (1) and refrain from engaging in similar conducts in the future.
(3) During the course of this investigation, Itoki proposed measures including retroactive payment for services previously rendered without compensation to the logistics operators and a review and clarification of transaction terms with these operators through written documentation.
* This announcement is a tentative translation. Please refer to the original text written in Japanese.
